Leiweke's handiwork best seen in Seahawks aura

Published 10:00 pm, Thursday, January 12, 2006

Two years ago, before the Seahawks' memorable wild-card playoff game against the Packers, Tod Leiweke was taking in the ambiance of Lambeau Field and the greater Green Bay metroplex.

Green Bay is a nice town on a lake, but to a guy like Leiweke, a serious sports fan with Midwestern roots, it's way more than lakefront appeal and middle-America values.

"It's a special place for football," the Seahawks CEO said. "It's an extraordinary environment for the game."

Afterward, even though the Seahawks had lost 33-27 in overtime, Leiweke remained resolutely upbeat.

"We have something great to build on," he said. "You're going to see those billboards and other things in Seattle."

The latter reference was to the ubiquitous signs of support for the Packers that spring up throughout the Green Bay area during football season, which happens to be four seasons long.

True, Packers football is pretty much the only game in town. And it's been that way in Green Bay since 1921. Comparatively, the Seahawks -- and, for that matter, all professional teams in Seattle -- are barely adolescents.

All the more reason to appreciate Leiweke's accomplishments in less than three years with the Seahawks.

But if you think Leiweke hasn't influenced Holmgren's tenure as coach and Ruskell's arrival as president, you don't know Tod.

Leiweke runs the business side of the football team for owner Paul Allen. And he's one of those guys who take no credit for anything at all. He comes in, puts together a plan, hires people he knows and values, gives them the tools to execute the plan, creates a positive atmosphere for employees and, if he's done his job the right way, gets the community jazzed and other people to take notice.

It's a slow process, especially in a place as far removed from the major media centers as Seattle is. But the rest of the sports world is starting to pay attention. The Washington Post this week ran a story about the Seahawks under the headline: "Seahawks Shine Under Top Brass."

The story, by former Seattle Times reporter/columnist Les Carpenter, tells of the new sense of direction since the firing of Bob Whitsitt, Allen's former sage of sports, the man who at one time ran both the Portland Trail Blazers and the Seahawks for Allen.

Ever the gentleman, Leiweke doesn't discuss his involvement in Whitsitt's departure last January, after the Seahawks had lost a playoff game to the St. Louis Rams, their third loss to the Rams that season. But it's no secret that Allen has placed great trust in Leiweke to make the Seahawks, in Leiweke's words, one of the NFL's elite franchises.

This kind of talk tends to elicit guffaws from longtime Seahawks watchers, who haven't seen much sense of direction since the Nordstrom family sold the team in 1988, but Leiweke (pronounced lye-WICK-ee) never apologizes for the grand pronouncement, the big dream.

Earlier this week, he accompanied mountain climber Ed Viesturs on an ascent of the Space Needle, where Viesturs raised an enormous "12th man" flag for all Seattle to see. It's a salute to Seahawks fans -- the collective 12th man on the football field -- and it's at the heart of what Leiweke considers his main mission: getting the community to support the team.

"It was really cool," Leiweke said, "because as we were coming down someone from North Carolina said, 'What the heck is the 12?' "

Leiweke explained the meaning, savoring the memory of how Seattle has again become a noisy, noisome place for visiting teams.

"People parachuting in from another city wouldn't get it," he said, "but not here in Seattle. Here it's become a living, breathing thing. It's going to be a factor in the game on Saturday."

Three years ago, not so much.

"To see a lot of visiting-team fans in our stadium my first season here, it was a little disheartening," Leiweke said.

These days, Leiweke couldn't be prouder of the football experience in Seattle. It's starting to remind him of this football-crazy city in Wisconsin ...